New Amazon 4-star retail store coming to Berkeley

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A woman walks past the Amazon Go grocery store at the Amazon corporate headquarters on June 16, 2017 in Seattle, Washington. Amazon announced that it will buy Whole Foods Market, Inc. for over $13 billion. (Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)

Anyone visiting Berkeley’s Fourth Street shopping area who was wondering what was happening to the spot formerly occupied by a Crate & Barrel can wonder no more. Amazon is coming to town.

Signage has gone up at the location for a new Amazon 4-star concept retail outlet. According to Amazon, the store will carry only items that have been given reviews of four stars or higher, or are new or trending items for sale on Amazon.com.

Amazon opened the first such 4-star store in New York’s SoHo district on Sept. 27. The company has been making more of a push into physical retail stores over the past two years, starting with the 2016 launch of its first AmazonGo store in Seattle, where customers use their smartphones to make purchases. In June 2017, Amazon made its biggest retail move ever with its $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods Market.

The Berkeley location is believed to be the second such Amazon 4-star outlet. It is not yet known when the new Amazon store will open, or how many people it will employ. Amazon didn’t immediately return a request for comment about details about the Berkeley store.

Rex Crum is the senior web editor for the business section for The Mercury News and Bay Area News Group. He also writes about business and technology for the publications' print and web editions, and has covered business and technology for nearly two decades. A native of Seattle, he remains a diehard Seahawks and Mariners fan and is imparting his fandom to his Oakland-native wife and two young daughters.

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